Crash Blossoms

[carrie]

I love these.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magaz ... l?emc=eta1

[Caroluna]

Take this headline, often attributed to The Guardian: “British Left Waffles on Falklands.” In the correct reading, “left” is a noun and “waffles” is a verb, but it’s much more entertaining to reverse the two, conjuring the image of breakfast food hastily abandoned in the South Atlantic. Similarly, crossword enthusiasts laughed nervously at a May 2006 headline on AOL News, “Gator Attacks Puzzle Experts.”

Wonderful!
Reminds me of "mondegreens"

[Innocent Bystander]

The magazine New Statesman has a regular literary competition. One I particularly remember was for the most ambiguous headline in a particular style. It dated from the time that Michael Foot was head of the Labour Party in the UK.

The winner was something like: "Foot Backs Arms Head Hand".

And everyone must remember "Nut screws washers and bolts".

[emmline]

Good term, crash blossom.

[Alan]

Thanks, Carol. I needed a good chuckle!

[MTGuru]

From Today's Headlines: "Actor Sean Penn Charged with Battery".

Because it's much more convenient than plugging him into a wall socket.

[Innocent Bystander]

Reminds me of the time when the Police found a couple of local kids who had stolen a car battery and a bunch of fireworks.

So they charged one and let the other off.

[Wombat]

Punctuate the following if you dare:

time flies you cannot they fly at such irregular intervals.


for my next trick: not a crash blossom but almost as much fun. My favourite form of stress management involves the resolution of ambiguity. Add a lexical ambiguity or two and you can have a lot of fun. How many readings of the following sentence can you find?

Dr. Dagenschlock gives lessons only to poor musicians.

[Nanohedron]

How many readings of the following sentence can you find?

Dr. Dagenschlock gives lessons only to poor musicians.

Four, now that I've worked out the changes:

...gives lessons to impoverished musicians only...

...gives lessons to substandard musicians only...

...gives no more than lessons to impoverished musicians...

...gives no more than lessons to substandard musicians...

That's all I've got.

[I.D.10-t]

In their quest for concision, writers of newspaper headlines are, like Robert Browning, inveterate sweepers away of little words, and the dust they kick up can lead to some amusing ambiguities.

With the number of puns and word games that I have heard and seen in the average news report, I have always thought that this was an attempt at wit more than anything else, not a case of over zealous brevity.

[Wombat]

How many readings of the following sentence can you find?

Dr. Dagenschlock gives lessons only to poor musicians.

Four, now that I've worked out the changes:

...gives lessons to impoverished musicians only...

...gives lessons to substandard musicians only...

...gives no more than lessons to impoverished musicians...

...gives no more than lessons to substandard musicians...

That's all I've got.

You've got the lexical ambiguity which means there are two readings for every stress ambiguity. You missed a few of the latter. You'll kick yourself when you see them.

[Nanohedron]

How many readings of the following sentence can you find?

Dr. Dagenschlock gives lessons only to poor musicians.

Four, now that I've worked out the changes:

...gives lessons to impoverished musicians only...

...gives lessons to substandard musicians only...

...gives no more than lessons to impoverished musicians...

...gives no more than lessons to substandard musicians...

That's all I've got.

You've got the lexical ambiguity which means there are two readings for every stress ambiguity. You missed a few of the latter. You'll kick yourself when you see them.

Aha: A comma/dash/ellipsis/pause after "Dr." gives us four more, if I'm rightly getting what you're driving at. Eight readings, so far.

I toyed with a comma after "lessons", which gives a subtle difference to my first two: "He indeed gives lessons, but the category is poor musicians." Okay, two more, then. Commas after both "Dr." and "lessons" gives us four. Originally I discarded all these, but now I think it's safe to change my mind about that.

I'm again back up to twelve, and my brain is throbbing.

Oops. That should be fourteen. Throb.

[Nanohedron]

In case I got it wrong and must apply vocal stress, a few things change:

Doctor Dagenschlock (show some respect, bub)

Dr. Dagenschlock (THIS is who)

Dr. D gives lessons (hmm...are they free?)

...to poor musicians (as opposed to wealthy/skilled - but this subtlety comes as a bit of a stretch for me)

...to poor musicians (you seem to have mistook the case)

Change the period to a question mark, and you have inquiry or incredulity.

I'm still including the readings based on pauses. Someone else will have to take all the likely permutations and count them from there. Please. I'm tired and getting disorganised.

[Wombat]

In case I got it wrong and must apply vocal stress, a few things change:

Doctor Dagenschlock (show some respect, bub)

Dr. Dagenschlock (THIS is who)

Dr. D gives lessons (hmm...are they free?)

...to poor musicians (you seem to have mistook the case)

Change the period to a question mark, and you have incredulity; someone else will have to take it from there. I'm tired and getting disorganised.

Now you've got it. Not sure you got all of them though. He gives lessons only to poor musicians, not carpenters or bricklayers. He gives lessons not candies or three-course dinners.

By the way, the name is a joke involving Joycean algebra. It helps to get it if you're Australian and know a bit of German and Yiddish.

I used to give this one to my practical reasoning students in exams. Actually, they did surprisingly well at it.

[Nanohedron]

In case I got it wrong and must apply vocal stress, a few things change:

Doctor Dagenschlock (show some respect, bub)

Dr. Dagenschlock (THIS is who)

Dr. D gives lessons (hmm...are they free?)

...to poor musicians (you seem to have mistook the case)

Change the period to a question mark, and you have incredulity; someone else will have to take it from there. I'm tired and getting disorganised.

Now you've got it. Not sure you got all of them though. He gives lessons only to poor musicians, not carpenters or bricklayers. He gives lessons not candies or three-course dinners.

By the way, the name is a joke involving Joycean algebra. It helps to get it if you're Australian and know a bit of German and Yiddish.

I used to give this one to my practical reasoning students in exams. Actually, they did surprisingly well at it.

I added another one - "poor" - to my list above (q.v.).

I applied the general idea of "you seem to have mistook the case" to include carpenters and such, although your examples weren't specifically in mind at the time. But my reasoning did have a slightly different slant of possibility, didn't it.

A likely use for stress (one that I would find as probable as it is possible, and I think this was my blind spot) on "lessons" indeed eluded me up to now.